Structures are oftentimes formed of a plurality of parts that are assembled and then secured with a plurality of fasteners, such as rivets or bolts. One example of such a structure is an aircraft that includes hundreds or thousands of parts that are assembled and then secured with even more fasteners. In order to install the fasteners, openings must be defined in the assembled parts, such as by drilling openings through the assembled parts with the size, e.g., diameter, of the openings approximating, such as by being slightly larger than, the size of the fasteners. The fasteners may then be inserted through the respective openings in order to secure the assembled parts.
In order to appropriately secure the parts, the fasteners must generally be placed in predefined positions relative to the assembled parts. Consequently, the openings through which the fasteners are to be subsequently inserted must also generally be located at the same predefined positions. In order to mark the predefined positions, pilot holes may be drilled at the predefined positions of the parts prior to their assembly. Pilot holes are typically significantly smaller in diameter than the openings that will be subsequently formed to receive the fasteners. The parts may then be assembled and the openings that will subsequently receive the fasteners may be formed, such as by drilling larger holes, such as holes having larger diameters, at the predefined positions marked by the pilot holes. Since the pilot holes are smaller than the openings that will subsequently receive the fasteners, the drilling of the openings to subsequently receive the fasteners will eliminate the pilot holes, even in instances in which the pilot holes drilled in the assembled parts are slightly mismatched or offset from one another.
While pilot holes serve to effectively locate the predefined positions of the fasteners, the formation of the pilot holes may be a time-consuming process. In this regard, each pilot hole must generally be individually drilled. While the time required to drill a pilot hole may vary based upon the type of material from which the parts are formed, the size of the pilot hole, the accessibility of the pilot hole and other factors, it may take approximately 3 minutes to drill a single pilot hole in a part that will be subsequently assembled to form an aircraft. Since at least some parts include numerous fasteners, such as hundreds or thousands of fasteners, and, as such, require numerous pilot holes, the drilling of the pilot holes may require a substantial amount of time, thereby increasing the time required to assemble the structure and the costs associated with assembling the structure.